James Pethokoukis

Tags:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell declared Monday that he now supports a GOP ban on earmarks, a stunning reversal that puts the Kentucky Republican in line with the tea-party wing of his party and conservative senators who have long sought to kill off pet projects. “What I’ve concluded is that on the issue of congressional earmarks, as the leader of my party in the Senate, I have to lead first by example,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “Nearly every day that the Senate’s been in session for the past two years, I have come down to this spot and said that Democrats are ignoring the wishes of the American people. When it comes to earmarks, I won’t be guilty of the same thing.”

Tags:

Tags:

So I took a crack at the budget simulator cooked up over at the NYTimes Web site. It starts out with a projected 2015 deficit of $418 billion and a projected 2030 deficit of $1.355 trillion. My goal was to do it through 100 percent spending cuts.